-- Calendar October

On October 1 of 1880 Thomas Edison opens the world's first factory for the manufacture of incandescent electric lamps near his home in Menlo Park (now Edison Township).

On October 2 of 1919President Woodrow Wilson, who had just cut short an 8,000-mile speaking tour of the country to promote ratification of the Treaty of Versailles establishing the League of Nations, suffers a massive stroke. His wife Edith and his physicians keep the press and Congress from learning of the severity of his condition for several months until he partially recovers to again appear in public.

On October 3 of 1776The first “Great Seal” for the state of New Jersey is proposed by the legislature, but the final design was not adopted until May 1777. The principal designer was an emigrant from Switzerland residing in Philadelphia, Pierre-Eugène du Simitière, who also served as the artistic consultant for the committees that designed the Great Seal of the United States, designed the seals of Delaware and Georgia and suggested the adoption of the US motto E pluribus unum ("Out of Many, One").

On October 4 of 1918 An explosion which triggers other blasts over three days kills more than 100 and destroys the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant in Sayreville, one of the largest munitions factories in the world. The explosions also destroy over 300 nearby buildings, forcing the evacuation and reconstruction of Sayreville and neighboring South Amboy

On October 5 of 1982Johnson & Johnson announces a nationwide recall of all products in its Tylenol brand after several bottles in the Chicago area are found to have capsules tainted with cyanide, resulting in seven deaths.

On October 6 of 1966 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gives a speech at Monmouth College (now University) in West Long Branch.

On October 7 of 1993Toni Morrison, who began teaching at Princeton University in 1989, becomes the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

On October 8 of 1982The New Jersey Devils record their first victory, beating the New York Rangers 3-2 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the Meadowlands

On October 9 of 2001Two letters tainted with anthrax postmarked on this date and processed through the Trenton post office are mailed to the Washington offices of two Democratic Senators,Tom Daschleof South Dakota andPatrick Leahyof Vermont. The letters are sent three weeks after earlier letters with Anthrax were sent through Trenton to the offices of NBC News and the New York Post in Manhattan.

On October 10 of 1976Giants Stadium opens in the Meadowlands with a National Football League game in which the Dallas Cowboys defeat the New York Giants by a score of 24 to 14 before a crowd of 76,042.

On October 11 of 1811 Inventor and Revolutionary War Colonel John Stevens of Hoboken begins operating the first steam-powered ferry, the Juliana, between Manhattan and Hoboken

On October 12 of 1920Construction begins on the Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel, later named the Holland Tunnel in memory of its chief engineer Clifford Holland, connecting Jersey City with Lower Manhattan. It was opened on November 13, 1927.

On October 13 of 1941Singer and songwriter Paul Simon is born in Newark. In 1964, he begins performing with Art Garfunkel, with their first hit 'Sounds of Silence."

On October 14 of 1878Thomas Edison files his first patent application for "Improvement In Electric Lights".

On October 15 of 1928The German airship Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst

On October 16 of 1935Governor Harold G. Hoffman visits and interviews convicted Lindbergh baby kidnapper Bruno Richard Hauptmann in his cell at the Trenton State Prison.

On October 18 of 1931Thomas Alva Edison, one of the most prolific inventors in history awarded 1,093 patents during his lifetime, dies at his home in West Orange at the age of 84

On October 17 of 1888Thomas Edison files a patent for the first movie projector, the “Optical Phonograph,” which projects images less than one inch wide across a screen.

On October 19 of 1915New Jersey voters in a statewide referendum reject amending the state Constitution to extend the right to vote to women by a vote of 184,390 to 133,282.

On October 20 of 1931Thomas Edison funeral is held at his Glenmont estate and laboratory in West Orange attended by First Lady Lou Hoover, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, followed by burial in Rosedale Cemetery in East Orange. President Hoover issues a proclamation calling for a national tribute to Edison's memory on the next evening by turning off electric lights for one minute.

On October 21 of 2013Same sex marriage becomes legally recognized in New Jersey when a trial court ruling takes effect in the case of Garden State Equality v. Dow invalidating the state's restriction of marriage to persons of different sexes and after the State Supreme Court denies a motion to stay the implementation of the lower court's decision.

On October 22 of 1746The College of New Jersey (renamedPrinceton University in 1896) receives its charter from King George II, under the seal of John Hamilton, Acting Governor of the Royal Province of New Jersey. It is the fourth college to be established in the British colonies—after Harvard (1639), William and Mary (1693) and Yale (1701).

On October 23 of 1935The mobsters Dutch Schultz, Abe Landau, Otto Berman, and Bernard "Lulu" Rosencrantz are fatally shot at the Palace Chop House in Newark in what becomes known as The Chop House Massacre. The shooting was apparently ordered by the national crime commission syndicate shortly after it had rejected Schultz's proposal to kill US Attorney Thomas Dewey in fear that Schultz would still go ahead with his plan to assassinate Dewey.

On October 24 of 1931After four years of construction, the George Washington Bridge is dedicated and opened to traffic on the following day. It was the longest main bridge span in the world at the time until being surpassed by the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937.

On October 26 of 1963An estimated 4,000 people join in a civil rights “March on Trenton for Jobs and Freedom.” It is the first statewide civil rights demonstration in the US, having been modeled on the March on Washington the previous August 28.

On October 27 of 1837William Pennington, a member of the Whig party, is sworn in as the 13th governor of New Jersey and subsequently would be elected to seven successive single-year terms. He is later elected as a Republican to the US House of Representatives and serves as Speaker of the House during his single term from 1859 to 1861.

On October 28 of 1886President Grover Cleveland leads ceremony dedicating the Statue of Liberty, which is followed by the first ticker tape parade as workers in brokerage firms in Manhattan spontaneously throw ticker tape from office windows.

On October 29 of 2012Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in New Jersey with gusts reaching 90 miles per hour and rain and storm surge flooding much of the state. Over two million households lose power, 346,000 homes are damaged or destroyed and the deaths of 37 people are attributed to the effects of the storm.

On October 30 of 1938The CBS radio broadcast 'War of the Worlds' produced by Orson Welles describing a Martian invasion of the town of 'Grovers Mills' in New Jersey (site in Township of West Windsor) is mistakenly believed by some listeners to be an actual news broadcast, sparking panic and calls to police.

On October 31 of 2012President Obama tours storm damage from Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey, with Governor Christie's warm welcome of the President just before the presidential election criticized by some Republicans as undermining voter support for Mitt Romney.